Detroit Michigan

Recommendations
The panel organized its recommendations
to the city’s Rose fellowship team into
five broad areas:
Create nodes;
Change by design;
Market and brand;
Build capacity; and
Activate government.
Create Nodes
The late urban designer Kevin Lynch defined nodes
as areas of concentrated activity, often located at
the intersections of key streets or at a particular
block that makes up the heart of a specific district.
The human and economic activity embodied at a
node typically radiates out into the surrounding
streets and blocks, making it an important destination.
Commercial real estate brokers often refer
to a very large node as a “100 percent corner,” a
place of maximum exposure that in turn generates
tremendous commercial real estate value.
The panel recommends that the city, the stakeholders,
and their partners focus on specific nodes along
Livernois Avenue to coordinate urban design ideas
and elements and concentrate initial implementation
resources. A nodal focus that bundles resources
in specific parts of the corridor (rather than spreading
limited investment along the entire two miles)
has more of a chance to create noticeable changes
and effects that in turn will build momentum for
the rest of Livernois. However, the panel noted that
a nodal approach is just one strategy and that other
recommendations could be applied corridorwide.
The panel proposed two types of nodal selection
criteria: physical and stakeholder driven. Physical
Detroit, Michigan, January 18–21, 2011
selection criteria could include places no longer
than a quarter-mile in length where a concentration
of occupied storefronts exists with activity
on both sides of the street and opportunities for
shared parking. Stakeholder-driven criteria could
include places where a majority of merchants are
stable and established, with reasonable expectations
of financial support from property owners or
merchants and where vacant parcels are actively
being managed or marketed.
Some nodes for consideration proposed by the
panel included Seven Mile Road at Livernois
The Livernois corridor
study area (next to
ruler, which marks
two miles) is several
times longer than Nine
Mile Road in Ferndale
(red rectangle at top).
In comparison with
concentrated nodes,
sustaining retail over
such a long area is
difficult.
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